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Turner Hits First Homer of 2016, Nats Sweep of Diamondbacks

PHOENIX — Max Scherzer struck out 11 in eight innings and delivered a two-run single to help his cause in the Washington Nationals’ 8-3 win over the Arizona Diamondbacks on Wednesday.

Washington earned its fourth road series sweep of the season and first since May 30-June 1 at Philadelphia. Arizona lost its fourth straight and sixth in seven games. The Diamondbacks are winless in nine Wednesday games at home this season.

Scherzer (12-6) allowed three runs on four hits, giving up two homers, and walked one. He is 3-0 in four starts against his former team, which drafted the four-time All-Star and former Cy Young Award winner No. 11 overall in 2006.

Daniel Murphy’s sixth-inning solo home run broke a 1-1 tie before Scherzer bounced a single up the middle with the bases loaded and two outs, driving in Anthony Rendon and Danny Espinosa.

Murphy, the NL’s leading hitter with a .358 average, has hit safely in 17 of 19 games and has seven home runs in that span, 20 on the season.

Scherzer held the Diamondbacks hitless for four innings, but David Peralta led off the bottom of the fifth with a double to left field. Peralta advanced to third on a wild pitch, and with one out, scored when Bryce Harper dropped a sliding catch of Brandon Drury’s shallow fly ball to right.

That tied the game at 1, after Trea Turner’s second career home run and first of 2016 came with one out in the top of the third.

The Nationals went ahead 4-1 in the sixth before Jake Lamb’s solo shot in the bottom of the inning. It was Lamb’s second homer in as many days.

Yasmany Tomas cut the Nationals’ lead to one with a home run in the seventh, the first time in his career he’s gone deep in back-to-back games.

The Nationals scored four runs in the ninth off Arizona’s troubled bullpen, on Espinosa’s RBI ground-rule double, a walk and Clint Robinson’s two-run pinch-hit single.

Diamondbacks starter Zack Godley (3-2) allowed four runs on eight hits with seven strikeouts and a walk in six innings.

TRAINER’S ROOM

Nationals: Harper returned to the lineup after missing Tuesday’s game because of illness. … IF Ryan Zimmerman remained out with a wrist injury; he hasn’t played since July 31 at San Francisco.

UP NEXT

Nationals: The club had yet to name a starting pitcher for Friday at home against San Francisco after Thursday’s day off.

Diamondbacks: RHP Braden Shipley (1-1) is set for his third major league start Friday against Milwaukee, after making his major league debut July 25 against the Brewers on the road. He’s coming off six scoreless innings at Los Angeles on July 30.